Good guys and bad guys, black hats and white hats. These are the staples of good story-telling, with many of us drawn to the villain's dark glamour - in fiction at least.

For writers and film makers, the world of finance has proved a rich source of stories, because ever since the credit crunch of 2008 it has become clear that decisions made by financiers affect us all - like it or not.

Gone are the days when banking was thought of as dusty and dry, the preserve of rather grey men in pin-striped suits.

Now it seems, bankers have replaced gangsters or cat-stroking Bond villains in secret lairs as the characters we love to hate.

Most of the people who dismantled our economy got bonuses, they didn't serve proper timeLeonardo DiCaprio

The latest film to explore the darker side of human behaviour is Martin Scorsese's, The Wolf of Wall Street.

It stars Leonardo DiCaprio as real-life crook Jordan Belfort, who cheated investors out of $200m (£120m) with fraudulent share sales through his US brokerage firm, Stratton Oakmont.

He and his colleagues used pressure sales tactics to sell worthless shares, talking up the value of these shares they had bought cheaply.

They then sold them for a profit - leaving other investors with losses when the inflated share prices collapsed.

The film is based on a book that Belfort, who ended up in jail after pleading guilty in 1999 to securities fraud and money laundering, wrote about his experiences.

'They didn't care'

Some have accused it of concentrating solely on the hedonistic excesses of its principals, as they blitzed through their ill-gotten gains in a blizzard of fast cars, planes, yachts, drink, drugs and prostitutes.